


Sugar

by XtaticPearl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Angie Martinelli Is The Best Aunt Ever, Anxiety Disorder, Avengers Family, BAMF Peggy Carter, Broadway Star Angie Martinelli, Canon Disabled Character, Christian Holidays, Comfort Food, Cute Kids, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Domestic Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, F/F, F/M, Family Bonding, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jewish Holidays, Lawyer Peggy Carter, Light Angst, M/M, Maria Stark's Good Parenting, Musician Maria Stark, Nicknames, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Orphans, Pet Names, Pets, Post-Divorce, Single Parents, Tony Collects Friends And Brings Them Home Like Stray Kittens, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, working moms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7730695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all began with Angie passing on her love for broken things to Tony. She prided on being a fixer and Tony, being her No.1 fan, quickly learnt that there was something amazing about fixing things. Then things became stray animals and animals became stray family and that became something more complex, but still, it's amazing. It gives him a happy high when he fixes things, like a sugar rush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> When I tag it as 'Light Angst' I might be underplaying things but I swear, this is DEFINITELY lighter angst than anything MCU throws our way. More of a 'I'm-stuck-between-best friends-who-won't-talk' than 'He died, she died and then we all stabbed our feels'. And no, there's nothing amazingly dramatic like Glee-esque high school here because my head hurts at all that drama. 
> 
> The story's title is from the song Sugar, You by my current favourite Oh Honey. Seriously, if you haven't heard their music, please do. Amidst all the negativity and hollow words that love songs/most songs have, Oh Honey manages to make meaningful and positive lyrics come alive. I love them and I am sure that I can bring you over to the light side ;)
> 
> Since I am basically a happy endings or at least hopeful endings kind of writer, you can rest assured that all will end well. But before we get to the ending, let's start with the beginning of this awesomesauce story I have to tell you about :P Go on, start reading <3

Tony was four when it first materialized in a considerably big way.

“Oh no” Peggy shook her head firmly as she eyed the grumpy little thing lazily glancing up at her from the luxurious lap currently holding it, “No, absolutely not. I stand my ground. This is not happening.”

“English really, look at him,” Angie gazed at the bundle of disinterested fur scratching at her skirt, “He needs us. He loves us. He was made for us. He has us written all over him.”

“He has ‘cat’ written all over him,” Peggy pointed out, holding her girlfriend’s latest object of attention in faux contempt, “And we have 'humans with busy lives’ written all over us. Really Angie, this is on the apex of monumentally problematic ideas.”

“Tony likes him,” Angie grinned slyly and Peggy bit off the groan threatening to spill out. Of course Angie had involved the four year old human-cub in this already.

“Maria is going to mind this terribly,” Peggy reasoned like the mature adult who was trying to keep her goofball girlfriend from dragging in a mini hell’s spawn into the already complicated setting they had.

“We got Mimi’s permission,” Angie said brightly and Peggy cursed Angie’s cousin and Tony’s mother for being an absolute putty.

“What did Tony tell her exactly?

"The usual,” Angie shrugged with a cheeky grin and Peggy huffed.

“I don’t see what’s broken in him,” she said with a squinted evaluation of the British shorthair who was now doing some analysis of Peggy for himself.

“Not everything broken can be seen, English,” Angie tutted with a frown, “His heart is broken.”

“And you told that to your nephew who has gone and caught himself your madness of fixing things?” Peggy sighed and Angie considered the question for a smart reply.

“Well, this time he told me that and you should be ashamed of yourself for calling a child mad, Pegs, honestly,” Angie held out her hand in front of the cat and let it sniff her fingers disdainfully.

Peggy snorted, “Right,” she raised an eyebrow, invariably impressed at the cat’s decision to like Angie back if his light purring was any indication, “Now, what do you plan to -”

“Aunt Peggy!” Peggy turned to her right and braced herself in the nick of time to catch the boy in her arms and like always, she did a half swing-arc to hear him giggle before putting him back on the ground.

“Aunt Peggy, did you see him? Did you meet him yet?” Tony asked excitedly and Peggy had to suppress an eye-roll at Angie’s smug grin.

“If by 'him’ you mean your little fuzzball friend over there, then yes, I did see him,” Peggy replied with a teasing smile at the bubbling energy of her godson, “But we haven’t been introduced yet. Would you do that?”

Tony practically dragged her by the hand in reply and soon Peggy was being entertained by a compelling narrative by the little boy and his aunt about how the cat had been found in the backyard storage and how Edwin had 'saved’ him from the 'evil and barbaric (Angie thought she was really smart here) barbed wires’ before Tony and his crazy goofy Angie had decided that the little rugrat was going to stay with them.

“Does he have a name?” Peggy asked when it was clear that nephew and aunt were ready to fight if she didn’t give in to this new family member. Peggy was a bit worried when Angie’s eyes twinkled at the question and she dreaded hearing a horrendous name when -

“Jarvis” Tony said proudly and Peggy blinked.

“Jarvis what?”

“That’s his name, Jarvis,” Tony explained like Peggy was the one being slow or insane.

“Darling, do you mind going and asking Ana if she needed anything from the store for dinner?” Peggy said as calmly as she could, forcing a smile onto her face as Tony looked confused but agreed and rushed out to search for Edwin’s wife.

“No” Peggy said as soon as the boy had gone out of sight, fixing Angie with what she hoped was a no-nonsense stare.

“It has been done, English,” Angie said gravely and Peggy opened her mouth and shut it.

“Angie, no,” she insisted a bit desperately, “You cannot do this”

“It’s a nice name,” Angie shrugged with a thinly hidden grin.

“It’s the name of the butler who feeds us everyday,” Peggy said with wide eyes, “Angie, love of my life, darling heart -”

“I love it when you lather on,” Angie mused lightly.

“-please, please, do not incite the man into homicide,” Peggy completed.

“It’s a nice name,” Angie repeated and Peggy had a horrifying thought that she was going to whimper.

“Angie, he could poison you,” Peggy tried again, “or worse, put salt in my tea.”

“That would be an interesting flavor,” Angie hummed and Peggy had no shame about whimpering then.

“I hate you,” she informed Angie with a weary sigh and her girlfriend patted her arm sweetly.

“I know. I love you too, English.”

The cat was indeed named Jarvis and took great relish in tempting everyone to coo his name whenever Edwin was around. Peggy got salted tea for a week, Maria got burnt toast and Angie surprisingly had a ketchup skull on her sandwiches every day. Peggy and Maria were wary of the man while Angie simply praised the cat-Jarvis louder every time the butler was around. Tony didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary because Edwin was incapable of holding a grudge against his young master.

Also, Jarvis was eerily similar to Edwin in characteristics so it wasn’t long before the butler grudgingly became friends with the animal.

When Tony was six, he brought in an Old English Sheepdog puppy from a shelter with Ana because it was 'sad and lonely’. Maria hid an ironic grin when he named it Dummy and both Edwin and Jarvis heaved great put-upon sighs. At the age of 9, Butterfingers the turtle joined the family and creeped Peggy out with his beady eyes. It was only when Tony was 11 and brought in the rejected (Peggy had words with Stane for that word) Havana bunny, simply named You, that Maria put a stop to adding animals to the family.

“But I fixed them!” Tony explained patiently when his mom sat him down and said that they wouldn’t be bringing in any more creatures into the house, “Ma, they were all broken and I fixed them! See? Now they’re all fixed.”

Maria bot back a smile at that innocent answer but she went on to explain how they already had too many pets and Tony would not be able to take care of more properly. After a long discussion, when Maria finally convinced him that he would have enough on his hands taking care of the pets he already had, Tony had asked her in a small voice.

“Mama? Was Daddy broken too?”

Maria had learnt to control her expressions in front of her whip-smart boy a long time back. Probably right at the moment when she had crossed the threshold of the Stark Tower in Malibu, finally deciding to let go of a long-lost dream. She had tried, so hard and so long, to play the peacekeeper to Howard’s fluctuating rage issues. So many swallowed insults, bitten back retorts, sucked back tears - all so that she could save her family, like the society expected her to. When Tony had been born on an ink dark night, with a crescent moon’s brightness reflecting a new hope, she had presumed that her struggles would ease.

That had shattered when Howard had transferred the same abusive behavior he graced her with onto her son. The minute she saw her ex-husband pour whiskey into her baby’s milk bottle, Maria had lost it. No amount of pleading that he had been drunk and out of his mind, no amount of taunting that she would be alone, no amount of fear that she had no place to go - nothing stopped her from picking up her babe and walking out.

Her first option had been to try staying with her paternal cousin, Antonio and his family till she could resolve her impending divorce. Howard and his friend/partner Obadiah had played their cards there and Maria was given the polite kick in a week. Every friend of her’s from her old circle and her circle formed as Maria Stark had failed. Till Angie and Peggy had come through. Angela was Maria’s distant cousin and a favorite amongst family but she was also in some ways linked to Howard through her girlfriend. Peggy had been Howard’s legal counsel for as long as Maria had remembered, and to approach them for help had been too huge a risk. Fortunately, Edwin Jarvis, the Stark butler, had no qualms about doing so on her behalf when he had met her one day at the school his wife worked in, where Maria had gone to look for a job.

Peggy had taken an hour to understand Maria’s case and Angie had taken one look at the baby Tony. That had been the singular point of change in Maria’s life. Peggy won Maria her divorce settlement and told her bluntly that it wasn’t charity if she deserved the money. Howard had been extremely close to a horrendous public humiliation and exposure, which made him accept the settlement quicker than expected. The ex-Stark Mansion and current Carbonell-Carter-Martinelli Mansion had become a home for the most strange group of members, who built a family around trust, strength and friendship. Maria had brought up Tony with Peggy and Angie as his aunts while Edwin and Ana were his extended family. With three women as his pillars, they had made sure to nurture him into the good man he would be than a great genius his dad had strived to rear him into.

Now, looking at her precious boy who looked up at her with curiosity and innocence that only souls untainted by hate and fear did, Maria thanked the Gods for giving her the strength to learn to love the broken parts she had salvaged.

“Your father had a broken heart even before I met him, _bambino_ ,” she said honestly, smoothing the downy hair off Tony’s forehead, “Sometimes, you can’t fix everything. But that’s okay, as long as you know which parts to pick up and move on.”

Tony looked thoughtful, as much as a kid could, but then nodded and became distracted when Edwin called out that a new batch of cookies was ready.

As Maria watched him run to the kitchen, yelling that he was to be the chief taster, she wondered a little sadly how far her Tony would go to fix every broken thing he found in the future.  Maybe it was in his genes. Or maybe it was just him being the fixer he was always destined to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback please my loves ❤


End file.
